


Shorter, Sharper

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Cunnilingus, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/F, Female Sherlock Holmes/Female John Watson, Femlock Friday, Femslash, Fingerfucking, Gender or Sex Swap, Hair Kink, Hurt/Comfort, Past Sherlock Holmes/Victor Trevor, Sherlock's Hair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 14:54:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6911701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has always let her hair grow long and wild. Until a case changes her mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shorter, Sharper

‘You can’t- Sherlock!’  
  
Lestrade makes a grab for her, but not fast enough. She pulls the sleeve of her coat from his hand, already starting to forget about him, already starting to run.  
  
Brockdale ran the moment he saw her. Immensely inconvenient. Sherlock suspects he recognized her from Joan’s blog, or maybe the tabloids, it doesn’t matter which. She saw the recognition flit across his face. Fear too, which- well, that’s slightly satisfying, she won’t deny it.  
  
To be feared, on sight, by criminals… it isn’t an unappealing thought. Inconvenient, but it still gives her a rush of power. Joan would probably disapprove.   
  
Brockdale’s running and she’s following. A map of London is unfurling behind her eyes already, her focus zoning in on these particular alleys, potential routes already coalescing inside her head.   
  
Running, the physical thrill of it, the animal excitement of having a quarry and chasing it down, sings in Sherlock’s blood. The only thing marring the chase is the absence of Joan, taking late clinic hours. The footsteps she hears behind hers are Lestrade’s, heavy, distinctive and unwelcome.  
  
She is faster than him, though. She is younger and considerably lighter. Only Joan has ever kept pace with her.  
  
Brockdale takes a left. She glimpses the heel of his shoe as it whips around the corner, vanishing. He’s faster than she anticipated.   
  
‘Sherlock!’  
  
Lestrade again, sounding breathless. Sherlock ignores him. She isn’t breathless, though her coat is too warm for this much physical activity. She is starting to feel sweat gathering in her armpits.   
  
She takes the same hard left as Brockdale. For one frantic, terrifying moment her shoe skids on litter- an empty bag of crisps- and she almost looses her balance entirely, almost smacks right into a wall. Staggering, growling, she rights herself.  
  
She is immensely glad she isn’t, like Sally, wearing heels. Joan would hate it if she- Sherlock shakes the thought away.  
  
Another left. Lestrade is well behind her now, judging from the sound of his footsteps. He isn’t as fast as Joan, isn’t as good (nobody is) but Sherlock can admit that he is at least as stubborn.   
  
Right turn. This alley is short, and smells distinctly of piss. There are two equally grimy alleys leading off this one and, frustratingly, no immediately obvious signs as to which fork Brockdale took.  
  
Think. Think.   
  
Panting slightly, Sherlock stops. Left or right? Left or right? Left takes him back towards the main roads. He might be able to jump on a bus, try and loose her in a crowd. A risk, though, and Brockdale isn’t a man who likes risk.   
  
Right… takes him deeper into backstreets and alleys. He might get lost, though she won’t. Would he risk that? Yes, she realizes, yes, because he had a second bolt-hole hidden away somewhere, didn’t he, somewhere he’d stashed the money, somewhere he thinks is still secret… That’s where he’s going.   
  
Right turn, then, and Sherlock picks up the pace, determined not to loose him. The adrenaline is helping her think, is rushing through her- how long did it take her to pick the right fork? Three seconds? Less?   
  
Joan would have been impressed.  
  
Her chosen alley is filled with bins and skips, all of them covered in graffiti, most of them overflowing. There is some kind of brown muck on the ground- she would rather not deduce what it is- and Brockdale’s footprints are clear in it. From the space between each tread, he is waning.  
  
Sherlock turns right again, into an alley almost identical to the one she’s just left behind. Brockdale must-  
  
Her head snaps backwards. Her feet skid underneath her, her momentum working against her as Brockdale drags her backwards by her hair. Agonizing pain in her scalp, and the torn muscles of her neck feel white-hot.  
  
Stupid, stupid, stupid, and Joan isn’t with her, Lestrade is still a minute away, maybe more-  
  
‘You nasty cunt,’ Brockdale says.   
  
Her neck and shoulders are badly wrenched. His hand is still tangled in her hair. There are tears in her eyes but she blinks them away, managing- just- to stay on her feet, staggering slightly, trying to lean away from him, throw him off.  
  
‘You’re unarmed,’ Sherlock tells him. ‘You think you’ll be able to hide away in your little den? You won’t. I already know about it. You may as well give up.’  
  
‘Fucking-’  
  
He tries to kick her feet out from under her. Sherlock jumps, his feet miss her, and she tries to wrench her hair from his grasp, but his hold is too strong. Sherlock turns and uses her elbow instead, jamming it backwards blindly. He grunts. He doesn’t let her hair go, though, and starts shaking her by the head, ragging her like a dog.  
  
Sherlock hisses through her teeth, and slowly his other arm creeps awkwardly around her neck. She almost smiles. She can feel his hesitation, however slight- he’s not a murderer, doesn’t want to be, and now that he is close enough her elbow can _really_ connect.  
  
Winded, Brockdale staggers, misses his footing, and then he slips in the muck and falls. Their arms and legs so are tangled together that Sherlock goes down with him which- well, isn’t ideal, because he is considerably heavier than her and if he manages to get on top-  
  
She hits at his face with the back of her hand, rolls away, trying to scramble up but he is already lunging towards her legs. Pain spikes up one of her wrists as she slams back down. Sprained. Is Lestrade ever going to arrive? Sherlock kicks out as best she can with his weight around her calves. Brockdale grunts, and now heels would certainly be an advantage, she could go for his eyes, perhaps.  
  
Brockdale starts to climbs up her legs. Sherlock kicks harder, twisting, knowing that he is trying to straddle her, press her face down into the filthy ground. She refuses to make it easy, rolling and kicking and squirming under him. She gets enough air into her lungs to scream- a terrifyingly loud, rather feminine scream. It is enough to make him pause, again, just for a moment. Lestrade will have heard it. He will be running faster now, Sherlock knows-  
  
-Brockdale, half pinning her to the ground by her hips, manages to get a hand around her neck. The back of her neck, but his hands are large. He could still crush her throat like this despite the barrier of her hair and her scarf. She kicks, trying to dislodge him, anything at all, and Brockdale must realize he hasn’t got time to strangle her properly, not like this.  
  
So instead of chocking her he lifts her, awkwardly, by the skin of her neck, almost as a cat would lift a kitten. Sherlock gets one last look at the slimy, brown muck under her face before he slams her head down into the hard, filthy concrete of the alley and everything goes black.  
  
~  
  
It transpires that, approximately fourteen seconds after Brockdale knocked her unconscious, Lestrade tasered him. With, Sherlock thinks, a rather excessive amount of force. Brockdale lost bowel control, which Sherlock’s wounded pride is rather pleased about.  
  
It isn’t only her pride that hurts, though. She has a sprained wrist, grazed hands and knees, and a chunk of hair missing from the back of her head. Plus a red lump over her right eyebrow, swollen to the size of a golf ball. Worst of all is her neck and shoulders, the muscles cruelly wrenched and torn by Brockdale when he first grabbed her, yanking her backwards.   
  
She’s also covered in dirt and grime. Her trousers, she suspects, will have to be binned. Annoying.   
  
Sally is at the other end of the alley, talking on her phone about some tedious technical issue. The medics have given Brockdale a shock blanket to wear around his hips like a towel, his soiled trousers thrown onto the ground and, for the moment, forgotten. He’s in handcuffs.   
  
He’s only looked in her direction once. Sherlock isn’t sure, but his expression seemed… ashamed. 

Dull. Her interest in him is already waning. A moderately interesting conman, yes, but no serial killer. Now the chase is over all she wants to do is go home, change out of her ruined clothes, and shower.  
  
‘Sherlock.’ Lestrade is walking towards her, leaving the uniforms to deal with Brockdale. ‘How are you?’  
  
‘I’m fine. Just like I was fine the last time you asked.’  
  
‘Ok… good. Good. You look awful though.’  
  
‘At least I’m not covered in my own piss. That’s police brutality, you know.’  
  
‘Sally said so too.’ Lestrade grins, unconcerned. ‘I hate it when you do that scream. Sounds like bloody murder every time. Gives me the creeps.’  
  
‘It’s very effective,’ Sherlock says. ‘Always makes you run faster. Scared the life out of Brockdale, too.’  
  
Sherlock glances at Lestrade, careful to keep her hair half covering her face so that he won’t notice her scrutiny. His expression is pleased, his shoulders are relaxed. She’d been expecting more shouting. A lot more shouting, actually. The last time she’d run off after a suspect he’d banned her from cases from a month.   
  
‘You’re not angry,’ Sherlock says. ‘Why aren’t you angry? You hate it when I run off.’  
  
‘Oh, I’m angry,’ Lestrade says. ‘But I figure Joan will be angrier, so I’ll let her do the shouting for both of us.’  
  
Sherlock groans. Joan… is going to be furious. She hasn’t even thought about that, yet, of what Joan will say when she finds out. And she will find out. Lestrade has probably already texted her, the insufferable man.  
  
‘Damn,’ Sherlock says. Lestrade laughs, not unkindly.  
  
‘You’d have won that fight if she’d been with you,’ he points out.  
  
‘Yes, I know, thank you,’ Sherlock says, clipped.   
  
‘You told her it wouldn’t be dangerous.’  
  
‘It wasn’t. Not really.’  
  
She ignores his raised eyebrows. It hadn’t been dangerous. Brockdale, a murderer? Hardly.   
  
Sherlock tries, very carefully, to rotate her head. She can’t, and her breath hitches in pain, an involuntary noise that she immediately wishes she’d been able to stifle.   
  
‘Did they give you painkillers?’ Lestrade asks, peering at her more closely now. ‘You’re holding your head at a funny angle.’  
  
‘They gave me something for the pain but,’ Sherlock hesitates. ‘Nothing …strong.’  
  
‘Right.’ Lestrade runs his eyes over her, clearly considering their options. ‘Stay put, I’ll be back in a second.’  
  
Sherlock shrugs, then winces. Lestrade hurries off to speak to Sally about something or other. It hardly matters. The pain in her neck is really rather considerable- she finds that she has to lift her shoulder up by her ear slightly in order to feel comfortable at all.  
  
Joan is going to be furious.  
  
‘I’ve handed the scene over to Sally,’ Lestrade says, jogging back over. ‘I’m giving you a lift home.’  
  
‘I can catch a cab,’ Sherlock says, instantly uncomfortable at the thought of riding in his police car. Mycroft does like to bring the CCTV out at family gatherings. ‘I’ll be fine.’  
  
Lestrade snorts. ‘You haven’t seen yourself, Sherlock. No cab would take you.’  
  
‘Fine,’ she says, ungraciously. ‘Lets go then. I’m rather keen to be somewhere that doesn’t smell like piss.’  
  
She gives Brockdale one last, cursory glance before turning her back on him. He’ll spend a satisfying number of years in prison, she doesn’t doubt. 

Lestrade falls into step beside her. They return the way they came, only now, without the rush of adrenaline to make everything bright, vivid, exciting, Sherlock can see every bit of litter, every bit of broken brick and shattered glass, for what it is- dull, and disgusting, and pointless, pointless waste.  
  
‘He felt very badly about it, you know,’ Lestrade says, out of nowhere, apparently following his own (incomprehensible, likely foolish) train of thought.   
  
‘Who? Badly about what?’  
  
‘Brockdale! You can’t have already deleted him.’  
  
‘What did he feel badly about?’ Surely not the smuggling?  
  
‘Knocking you out,’ Lestrade says, as if this should be obvious. ‘He kept asking if you were ok, you know.’  
  
‘He’s not a naturally violent man. I could’ve won that fight.’  
  
Lestrade pointedly says nothing.  
  
‘I could’ve! Under… different circumstances.’  
  
‘If you say so,’ Lestrade says. ‘Here we are, then.’  
  
They round the last corner and regain the main street, where Lestrades car sits exactly where Sherlock had left it before running off after Brockdale.   
  
Every pedestrian they pass is carefully, subtly dodging away from her, as if she is inside a large, invisible bubble. She must truly look awful, then. Possibly she smells too. She hasn’t been this studiously avoided in public since the incident on the Tube with the harpoon.  
  
Lestrade unlocks the car and Sherlock climbs in, sighing through her nose as she sits down. Getting the seatbelt on is more of a struggle than she’d like to admit, but she manages.  
  
‘How long till Joan’s back from the clinic?’  
  
‘Two hours.’  
  
‘Hmmm.’ The engine starts, the rumbling making Sherlock’s head ache. ‘Good luck with that.’  
  
Sherlock _hmm_ ’s in response. She’ll need it.

~  
  
Mrs Hudson is out when Sherlock returns. This is one small blessing, at least: not being fussed over. An hour and a half in total privacy to lick her wounds.   
  
She kicks off her shoes by the door, hangs up her coat, unwinds her scarf. They’ll need a wash, but it can wait. Her shirt and bra- always a sports bra on a case, always- come next, both thrown in the general direction of the bedroom. Her trousers. Well. They are filthy and, on further inspection, have torn at the knees. She balls them up and throws them in the bin.  
  
Now wearing only her underpants, Sherlock strides towards the bathroom, only to be called back almost at once by the sound of her phone’s text alert.   
  
Her phone is in her jacket pocket. Sherlock fishes it out, hoping it isn’t Mycroft making some snide remark about her appearance, as no doubt observed already on the CCTV.

_Greg told me what happened. Damn it, Sherlock. I’ll be home soon, I’m ordering Chinese and you ARE eating tonight. I hope you let the medics look at you, at least._

_JW  
_  
Her stomach rumbles rather loudly at the thought of food. She glances down at herself, mildly alarmed by the unseemliness of the noise. Joan is always trying to get her to eat more, thinks she is too thin- her hip bones do jut forwards through her skin rather sharply.   
  
Sherlock mentally shakes herself.  
  
_Yes. Fine. I’m fine.  
SH  
_  
She returns to the bathroom, wriggles out of her underwear, and gives herself a good long looking at in the mirror. She doesn’t do this very often. After all, she knows what she looks like. Pale, much paler than Joan. Skinny, boney in places. Her breasts are small, hardly a handful, her pubic hair by comparison wild, lush.  
  
The bump on her forehead is pink and shiny. There are still traces of grime on her face, streaks of dirt and filth she hadn’t managed to rub away with the sleeve of her coat. The grazes on her hands and knees aren’t deep, but they sting. She can already see yellow bruising developing at the heel of her hand, her strained wrist aching when she bends it.   
  
Sherlock turns to the side, trying to see the spot where Brockdale ripped out her hair. She gasps, pained, unable to twist her head, unable to even lift her arm high enough to pull her hair aside and inspect the damage. Unacceptable.  
  
She climbs into the shower and turns the water up as hot as she can endure, letting it wash away the grime and blood, letting it pour over her aching muscles. 

~  
  
Sherlock is on the lounge when Joan returns. She’s dressed herself in comfortable pajamas and put the television volume down to a low murmur. Joan half-runs up the steps. Sherlock tries, and fails, to suppress a smile.   
  
‘Home,’ Joan says, opening the door, toeing off her shoes. ‘Obviously.’  
  
‘Obviously,’ Sherlock repeats, still smiling, still unable to stop herself. ‘You were vomited on today.’  
  
‘Yep. On my nice new shoes and everything. Still, it’s better than being _knocked unconscious in a dirty alley_ , Sherlock.’  
  
Sherlock sighs. The smell of Chinese is wafting out of the takeaway bag Joan is holding, and her stomach is taking a very decided interest. She can feel her mouth filling up with saliva. She’s starving, she realizes.  
  
‘You told me it would be safe,’ Joan says.   
  
‘Feed me, then I’ll explain.’  
  
‘Hungry, are we? Have you had anything since you got home?’  
  
‘Water.’  
  
‘Typical.’  
  
Joan dumps the food onto the table and leaves for the kitchen. Sherlock watches her go. She always watches Joan, always enjoys seeing her, how she moves.  
  
Unlike Sherlock, Joan is short, and physically sturdy. She has wider hips and golden skin and short cropped hair that looks, and is, as soft as feathers. She’s a little busty and every time Sherlock catches sight of the muscles in her arms, her thighs, she feels heat rush through her core. She always feels much smaller than Joan, spindly and awkward. How strange, to feel smaller than Joan, when Sherlock knows she is a full head taller.   
  
‘Here,’ Joan says, returning, pressing a plate into Sherlock’s stomach. ‘Eat something before I strangle you.’  
  
Sherlock sits up too quickly and winces at the pull on her neck. The shower helped, but the painkillers, weak and useless things, have already faded.   
  
‘You right?’ Joan says, watching her.   
  
‘Fuss over me later,’ Sherlock says, ripping the plastic lid off a container of noodles. ‘Must eat.’  
  
So they eat in silence, the light outside turning orange and then fading towards nighttime and darkness. Every so often Joan glances up at her, her face creased with concern. Sherlock pretends not to notice.

(How would this evening have gone, had she remained unhurt? Joan coming home, desperate to hear the outcome of the case. Sherlock would have explained it, the chase, would’ve made it exciting. Joan would’ve been sorry she’d missed it, would’ve been impressed by her, amazed by her.  
  
She would have called Sherlock fantastic and her eyes would have been glowing, her smile shifting towards a smirk, her eyes becoming dark. There wouldn’t be this hateful distance between them. Joan would rest her thigh along Sherlock’s thigh, would let her hands creep up over Sherlock’s knee, then higher again, her lips warm, her mouth tasting of Chinese and old tea-  
  
But no. Joan is angry, is waiting for her explanation. She, Sherlock, has been stupid. Is now awaiting her judgment and (hopefully, inevitably) redemption.)  
  
Once full Sherlock collapses back onto the lounge. She feels like she could explode. Her stomach has probably doubled in size. Joan, eating at a more sensible rate, takes another five minutes to finish.   
  
‘So what happened, exactly?’  
  
‘He recognized me the moment we turned up. He ran, so I chased him. Nothing very dramatic. It wasn’t actually dangerous, Joan. I’m fine.’  
  
‘You were knocked out, Sherlock. I don’t call that fine. Lestrade said he tased the man, he said you’d done that horrible shrieking thing you do.’  
  
‘Well, I could hardly pause mid-fight and text him my location, could I? I knew he wasn’t too far behind me. Besides, Brockdale isn’t a murderer. He isn’t even a violent man.’  
  
‘Really?’ Joan’s eyebrows are rising furiously. ‘Could’ve fooled me.’  
  
‘Oh, don’t be stupid,’ Sherlock says, suddenly impatient. ‘He was twice as big as me. If he’d wanted me dead I’d be dead. I haven’t even broken a bone. He wasn’t even armed, Joan.’  
  
‘So?’ Joan demands, leaning forwards. ‘He might’ve panicked, he might’ve underestimated his strength, he might’ve been clumsy. Just because he hasn’t actually got a gun doesn’t make it ok for you to go running off without me-’  
  
‘Without you? You weren’t even there! You were off at the _clinic_ ,’ Sherlock fills the word with scorn. ‘Being vomited on by a three year old. How thrilling.’  
  
‘Yes, Sherlock, because that’s _also_ my job. I don’t just chase down criminals with you, you know, you’re not- look, no.’ Joan sighs, runs a hand down her face. ‘If I’d been there with you, would we have won that fight?’  
  
‘Yes,’ Sherlock says, half unwilling, half proud. ‘Easily, I imagine.’  
  
‘Exactly. You’d have had backup. Taking on somebody as massive as Brockdale on your own, even if he isn’t a violent psychopath- it’s not on, Sherlock. Not by yourself.’  
  
‘Fine,’ Sherlock says, wanting nothing more than for this conversation to be over. ‘Fine.’  
  
Joan watches her closely, silently for a few moments. Sherlock watches her back. She can’t deduce, in the half-darkness that has fallen over 221B, what Joan is thinking, what Joan is seeing in her face. Then Joan nods, satisfied. Whatever she saw passed the test.  
  
‘Tell me what happened to your neck. I can tell it’s hurting.’  
  
‘Wrenched, strained. I lost a bit of hair too. My shoulders ache. The painkillers are piss-weak.’  
  
‘Hmm.’ Joan gets up, motioning for Sherlock to follow her. ‘I think I’ve got something for that. Come sit on the bath while I look.’  
  
Sherlock perches herself on the edge of the bathtub while Joan searches the cupboard under the sink. Sherlock tries, and fails, not to notice the firm curve of Joan’s arse, the way her shirt strains across her back.  
  
‘Here we go,’ Joan says, reappearing. ‘Heat rub. I’ll put it on, if your shoulders are that sore.’  
  
‘Thank you,’ Sherlock says. ‘Just try not to get it in my hair.’  
  
Joan tugs Sherlock’s pajama top aside, bearing her shoulder and neck. The cream smells strong, chemical- Sherlock wrinkles her nose at it, and Joan smiles.   
  
‘It’ll burn a bit, but it should be a good burn.’  
  
She squirts the cream directly onto Sherlock’s skin and starts rubbing it in, firmly, following the path of her muscles. Sherlock hisses, eyes falling closed, the pressure making her flesh jump and flinch. She tries to focus on the feeling of Joan’s hand on her skin- the warmth of her, her closeness, the callouses at the tips of her fingers.   
  
‘There we are,’ Joan says. ‘Other shoulder now.’  
  
She lifts up Sherlock’s mane of hair, shifting it carefully aside.   
  
‘Can you see where my hair came out?’ Sherlock asks. ‘I tried to look before but couldn’t see.’  
  
‘Let me look.’ Joan’s fingers roam across her scalp, gently, shifting curls aside. It takes all Sherlock’s self control not to sigh aloud.   
  
‘Yep, found it. It’s a red patch, but it’s not too bad. About the size of my thumb nail. Don’t fear for your vanity; you won’t have a noticeable bald spot. Must’ve hurt.’  
  
‘Hmm, yes,’ Sherlock admits. ‘Apparently Brockdale felt badly about it, afterwards.’  
  
‘As well he should,’ Joan says, starting to cream up Sherlock’s other shoulder. ‘You let the medics look at you?’   
  
‘Yes, Joan,’ Sherlock says, in the tone she uses on Mycroft. ‘Lestrade insisted. Stop worrying.’  
  
‘Good, good.’  
  
They are silent for a moment. The cream is, as promised, burning hot into her skin, but it isn’t a sharp pain. Endurable. Joan’s hands stay resting on her naked shoulders.  
  
‘Are you still mad at me?’  
  
‘A little,’ Joan says, and she sighs. ‘You know I don’t want… I don’t want to have to live without you again. You scare me. You’re just so stupid sometimes.’  
  
‘I’m a genius, you know.’  
  
Joan squeezes her shoulders. ‘A very stupid, reckless genius.’  
  
‘You like reckless,’ Sherlock points out. ‘You love reckless.’  
  
‘Yeah, ok, maybe I do,’ and Sherlock can hear the smile in her voice now. ‘I just like it when you’re not being reckless on your own.’  
  
‘I like that better too.’  
  
‘You’re forgiven,’ Joan says, and she bends down, at last, letting her lips graze across Sherlock’s.

~

Sherlock wakes alone the next morning. It’s still early, going by the slant and colour of the sunlight leaking in past the curtains. Joan has a half-day at the clinic, will be home again just after lunch.  
  
She stretches, naked, under the blankets. Some of her joints pop. She rubs sleep from the corner of her eyes before sitting up carefully, slowly. The lump over her head is still quite large, though a proper nights sleep seems to have saved her from a migraine.   
  
Slowly, warily, she raises her arms up above her head. There is no protest from her shoulders. She can rotate her head around in a circle too, though only slowly. Her neck is still rather sore.  
  
Joan has put the leftover Chinese in the fridge beside the human gum samples. She’s left a post-it note attached that says _Eat Me_. Sherlock considers complying, but decides she is still full from dinner.  
  
Lestrade has texted. Shockingly, he has managed to locate Brockdale’s hideout without her assistance. She’s impressed, so she sends him something only mildly insulting in reply. He’ll understand.  
  
No new cases on Joan’s website, none on her own, though there never is much going on her own website. She persists in checking, however- doing otherwise would be to admit defeat, to concede that the populist drivel Joan writes is more palatable than her own more precise, academic essays.   
  
She shut her laptop with a snap, fuming.  
  
There is nothing to do. The entire world is a grim, uninteresting cesspit. Bland. Petty. She tries not to dwell on Brockdale and fails. She hadn’t been expecting him to hide behind a skip and leap out at her like that. She can still remember, vividly, being yanked backwards, the tears coming into her eyes.  
  
She re-opens her laptop, and idea growing, a solution forming.   
  
She has always let her hair grow long, always let it run wild. It was such a quick, demonstrative way of declaring her difference from Mycroft, tedious, fussy Mycroft. As a child Mycroft had kept her hair in neat, tight plaits. Perfectly respectable, perfectly awful. The moment she joined the government her hair transformed into a strict French roll, not a single strand out of place.   
  
Probably, Sherlock thinks, it has never been let out since it was first styled. It’s impossible to imagine Mycroft with hair as curly as hers. Impossible to even imagine her with her hair down around her shoulders, as Sherlock’s always is.

‘Messy,’ Mycroft has called her hair, and, once or twice, ‘disgusting.’ Things did tend to get… caught up in it. There had been an incident, once, with a box of dead crickets she’d been using in an experiment. It had taken three days before she was sure she’d managed to comb all of them out. Still… anything that annoys Mycroft, anything that gets under her skin is a bonus in Sherlock’s book.  
  
Her idea is still forming and the internet, as ever, is full of advice, much of it utterly useless, some of it relevant. She reads ten articles and watches five how-to videos, and becomes briefly distracted researching the prevalence of hair as a sentimental keepsake.   
  
(She mourns the decrease of such romantic physical keepsakes. Would Joan let her keep a lock of hair? The thought is oddly appealing. On the outside it would be nothing but a simple necklace, a silver locket tucked away under her scarf, her shirt, but inside- Joan, clutched close to her, the metal that encased her hair pressed against Sherlock’s beating heart. Joan already permits Sherlock to experiment on her discarded skin cells. Perhaps, if she asked very carefully, when Joan was in a good mood…)   
  
Sherlock blinks herself back into reality. The laptop screen has gone dark in front of her, and time is passing. She has made a decision, now to act upon it.

Joan has hair scissors in her bedside drawer. She never goes to a hairdresser, considers it a waste of money. Keeping it military-short is hardly rocket science, after all. Sherlock borrows the scissors and makes a mental note to get her a new pair- Joan’s hair is much finer than Sherlock’s, and this is bound to blunt the metal beyond repair.  
  
She sets herself up in the bathroom. A chair. Mirrors. Newspaper for the floor, as she imagines the mess is going to be considerable. She can keep some of it, too, for experiments. Why had she not thought of that before? She’s lacking information on the impact of three new brands of hair-dye on naturally dark hair, which is unacceptable.  
  
Sherlock can’t be bothered to find a clean towel to wrap around her shoulders so, after some deliberation, she decides to use an old scarf of hers, made inappropriate for public outings after a boiled-egg related accident a few years previously. It still smells rather eggy.  
  
She examines her face in the mirror, tilting her head (slowly) from side to side, trying to get a good look at what she’s up against. She won’t even attempt cutting her hair as short as Joan’s. That would be a disaster. Perhaps a long bob, then. The internet indicated that it would be a low maintenance choice.  
  
As she raises Joan’s scissors for the first cut Sherlock hesitates. A voice, long forgotten and partly deleted, rises to the surface of her mind. 

Veronica Trevor, years ago, sitting in bed with Sherlock. Chemistry textbooks on the floor and the air around them hazy with smoke. They’d both been naked, and Veronica had been plaiting her hair into one long, thick rope.  
  
‘I love you hair,’ Veronica had said. ‘It’s so sexy. I’d kill for hair like this.’ 

Sherlock remembered herself smiling. She had preened under Veronica’s praise. Veronica had had red hair, wispy and light, a body as thin and pale as Sherlock’s only covered, every inch, by freckles.   
  
After Veronica, Sherlock had deleted the solar system, the stars, the universe. The constellations had reminded her too much of the complex network of freckles running over Veronica’s body. She hadn’t thought of the universe again, until Joan. Joan had taken the bitterness out of the knowledge, had allowed her to remember the stars again.

What if Joan, like Veronica all those years ago, desperately admires Sherlock’s hair? Isn’t this the sort of thing couples were meant to talk about? Not, Sherlock quickly amends, that she or Joan had ever behaved like a typical couple. Still. She will look entirely different, without hair half-way down her shoulder blades. What if Joan hates it?  
  
Her hand hovers in mid-air. In the mirror, Sherlock looks into her own eyes, deep in thought. Joan loves her eyes. She’s said so. They are pale blue-grey in colour. Quite large in her otherwise thin face.  
  
(Veronica had called them ‘freaky’ with affection. Then, later, with no affection or kindness at all, ‘bulgy, fishy, unnatural…’)  
  
Well, Sherlock doesn’t care what other people think of her. Never has, never will. So what if Joan doesn’t like it? It’s Sherlock’s hair. This is a practical decision. Her hair has proven itself to be an impediment in hand-to-hand fighting. Therefore it has to go.  
  
She starts cutting.

~  
  
The transformation is… startling. Sherlock, who already fends off accusations of vanity from Joan on a near daily basis, finds herself unable to stop glancing at her own reflection.   
  
She feels as if she’s shed a good kilo of weight from her scalp, for a start. The curls brush against the center of her neck, touching (but only just) the first bump of her spine. Still enough for Joan to get a grip on when they fuck.   
  
It’s colder, too, which Sherlock hasn’t been expecting. She will need her scarf more than ever now. Still, the overall effect is… good, she thinks. It makes her look a little sharper, somehow.  
  
The rest of her hair she gathers up into separate clumps, each labeled according to which experiment she plans on running.  
  
~  
  
Joan returns home just as Sherlock is, finally, considering the merits of warming up the Chinese. She tries to act casual as she fusses in the kitchen, picking up spoons and then, pointlessly, putting them back down again. She’s angled the kettle so she’ll be able to watch Joan’s reflection in it.  
  
‘Sherlock, hi. Have you- oh.’  
  
Joan pauses at the entrance to the kitchen. Sherlock takes in her reflection as Joan takes in her new hair. Heavy brown boots, well-worn, and the pair of jeans she almost always wears to work. A button-up plaid shirt, her leather jacket draped over her arm. Sherlock cannot claim to understand why, exactly, but everything about Joan, everything- even the laces on her boots- is attractive, maddeningly so.  
  
‘That’s a new… look,’ Joan says. ‘Turn around, let me see it from the front.’  
  
Sherlock turns, putting a hand on her hip, striking a silly pose. Ignores the tension in her chest, the increased beating of her heart. It’s _her_ hair. It doesn’t matter if Joan doesn’t like it.  
  
‘Woah,’ Joan says. ‘You look… really amazing, Sherlock.’  
  
Sherlock examines her, searching for a lie, for a polite falsehood meant to spare her feelings. She finds nothing but truthfulness. And attraction.   
  
‘I fancied a change,’ Sherlock says, smothering a smile. ‘I’ve never had it short before.’  
  
‘Never?’  
  
‘No, never. It annoyed Mycroft something dreadful when we were children.’  
  
‘Can I…’ Joan reaches out, letting the question hang. Sherlock obliges, walking over and bending down slightly, ducking her head so Joan can run her fingers through her hair. It feels different, now that Joan isn’t wading through endless, heavy curls just to reach her scalp. Sherlock closes her eyes.  
  
‘You lovely thing,’ Joan says, and Sherlock thinks that if she could purr, she’d be purring now. ‘I hope you cleaned up after yourself, though. If the bathroom is full of hair I’m _not_ going to be pleased.’  
  
‘I did. I’ve kept it, for experiments.’  
  
‘Ha. I should’ve guessed.’  
  
Joan kisses the tip of her nose and then releases her, draping her jacket over the back of her chair. Sherlock straightens up, trying not to miss the feeling of Joan’s fingers on her scalp.  
  
‘Did you eat yet?’  
  
‘Not yet. I was about to.’  
  
‘I’ll join you, then.’  
  
Sherlock retires to the lounge, spreading herself out over the cushions as Joan reheats the Chinese. She knows she’s being lazy but, without Joan watching, she can let herself grin, delighted. Joan likes it. Joan likes her hair.  
  
‘Shift your feet, lazy,’ Joan says, joining Sherlock on the lounge. Sherlock shifts over and takes the fork that’s offered her. She picks at the food, still a little full from last night.   
  
‘So hungry,’ Joan says, chowing down. ‘Work fridge broke so all our food was spoilt.’  
  
‘I’d deduced as much,’ Sherlock says. ‘You usually take your shoes off the moment you get upstairs. Today your charged right into the kitchen, didn’t even take your jacket off. You haven’t eaten since breakfast.’  
  
‘Oh, well deduced,’ Joan says. ‘Very impressive.’  
  
Sherlock grunts.  
  
‘I shouldn’t explain it to you,’ she says. ‘You’ll stop thinking I’m impressive. I should’ve maintained my… my…’  
  
‘Mysterious aura? Enigmatic persona?’  
  
Sherlock scowls. Joan beams at her with her mouth full of food.  
  
They finish eating. Sherlock re-checks her website, then Joan’s, and her phone for cases, news, something, anything. Nothing. London is empty of interest, all its murderers slacking off. Nothing to do, at all.  
  
‘The world is tedious, Joan, tedious.’  
  
‘Stop fussing. You finished a case yesterday, you’re fine.’  
  
‘Yesterday!’ Unendurable.   
  
‘Does it feel very different?’ Joan says. She gestures towards Sherlock’s hair. ‘I can’t remember the last time I had long hair. I must’ve been, what, fifteen…?’  
  
‘Fascinating,’ Sherlock says sarcastically, and Joan rolls her eyes. ‘It’s entirely superficial, Joan, it’s just hair. It was a practical choice.’  
  
‘Practical?’  
  
‘Work related. Yes.’  
  
‘Because of Brockdale? Or because of that time your experiment exploded and I spent the next two hours combing yellow sludge out of your hair?’  
  
Sherlock had forgotten about that incident. Urgh. She glares at Joan and decides not to grace that question with an answer. It does feel different, though, reluctant as she is to admit it. She keeps reaching up to brush it away, only to find it isn’t there.  
  
‘Economical too,’ Joan continues. ‘Think how much we’ll save on your posh shampoo now.’  
  
Sherlock snorts, unimpressed. Joan grins to herself, picking up the newspaper.  
  
With Joan being insufferable and nothing better offering itself up for consumption, Sherlock begins pacing the living room. She makes sure to stomp her feet as she does it, so that Joan can’t concentrate on her reading. The news is tedious anyway, always is.  
  
Annoyingly, Joan seems mostly able to ignore her, the only sign of her exasperation being her slightly raised eyebrows. She turns a page with a pointed rustle. Fine, Sherlock thinks, fine. She breaks out into a jog, circling the table.  
  
‘Ok, enough, Sherlock,’ Joan says, putting down the newspaper. ‘Seriously, stop.’  
  
‘Why should I?’ Sherlock wants to know, jogging on the spot. ‘Can you think of anything better for me to do?’  
  
‘Yes, actually,’ Joan says. ‘You’ve got nothing to do. I’m at a loose end. Fancy a midday fuck?’  
  
Sherlock stops jogging. She thinks she may have gone rather pink.  
  
‘Well,’ Joan says, pushing herself to her feet. ‘That got your attention. Come on then.’  
  
Without further ado she turns and vanishes into their bedroom. Sherlock hesitates for less than a second, then follows, pulling her pajama top off as she goes.  
  
Joan is already working on the buttons of her shirt. She is still wearing her boots, and Sherlock drops to her feet, undoing the laces with suddenly clumsy fingers. Joan sighs, looking down at her, and Sherlock eases off each boot, then each sock, rubbing her thumb up the arch of Joan’s foot.  
  
‘Look at you,’ Joan says. ‘Come here.’  
  
Sherlock leans up, letting Joan catch her in a kiss. Her shirt is open now, and Sherlock runs her fingers up and down Joan’s stomach, soft and warm.   
  
‘Don’t,’ Joan says, between kisses. ‘You’ll tickle me.’  
  
Sherlock smiles into the kiss. Ticklish. She never has been, and it still amuses her that Joan, so strong in so many ways, is brought to a giggling mess by the softest of touches.   
  
Joan is biting on her lower lip now, pulling at it, and Sherlock lets out a breathy noise, reaching around to find the clasp of Joan’s bra. She’s become very, very good at this. The clip falls apart under her fingertips.  
  
‘Clever Sherlock,’ Joan says, running her (short) nails down Sherlock’s spine, making her back arch. Joan’s hands are art, in Sherlock’s opinion. Calloused and practical, warm and steady against her flesh.  
  
Joan pulls her closer. Their naked breasts brush, and Sherlock’s nipples tighten at the touch of Joan’s. The warmth of Joan’s skin is intoxicating. Sherlock can feel herself flushing, her skin rising, goose-bumps erupting like a rash across her stomach.  
  
Sherlock’s mind becomes frenzied. Time seems to fade out, practical details fading. Remembering which bit happened first, and what happened later- these details are muddled, lost, unimportant. Her brain is overwritten by desire, all her focus on Joan, on the details of her body, of their bodies together.  
  
She can’t remember either of them taking off the rest of their clothes, but she remembers the pressing together of their naked bodies, herself so pale and slender, Joan so golden and firm. The taste of Joan’s nipple in her mouth and, above her, Joan’s breathless voice asking for _more_ , for _harder_.  
  
Sherlock remembers the way their legs twined together, how Joan’s hands had moved up the back of her thighs, finding the yielding flesh of her arse, squeezing her, pressing their hips together.   
  
Joan’s fingers sliding not-quite into her, Joan praising how wet she had been, how soft, Joan teasing her until Sherlock had heard the noises coming out of her own mouth as though it was a stranger she was hearing. Joan pressing in, in, in, Sherlocks hips stuttering forwards, desperate for her.  
  
‘You lovely- you perfect thing,’ Joan had said, at one point, four fingers pressed together inside Sherlock, and Sherlock had come with her head thrown back, hips rocking, clenching hard around Joan’s hand, clutching, clutching.  
  
Then Joan with her hands in Sherlock’s newly-cropped hair. She had been right, there had still been enough curls for Joan to grip in her fists. Joan’s nails raking across her scalp, scraping the sensitive skin at the back of her neck. Joan, calling her _my miracle_ , calling Sherlock _my perfect girl_.

Sherlock had let herself be guided by Joan’s hand in her hair, down, down; Sherlock’s full lips, her pointed, pink tongue working at Joan, sucking at her clit until her jaw was aching. Joan’s thighs trembling either side of her head as she came, twice, hips thrusting, crying out her name _(‘Sh-Sherlock!’)_ breathless, awe-struck.  
  
Then… then… a slow sinking, a calm, deep darkness as each and every muscle she has dissolves…   
  
‘Sherlock? Sherlock?’  
  
‘Hmm?’  
  
‘Are you back with me yet?’  
  
Sherlock blinks. She hadn’t known she’d been sleeping. Has she been sleeping? Joan, naked, is leaning over her, smiling fondly. Her hair is an unholy mess. The sheets are tangled around their ankles.  
  
‘Hello,’ Sherlock says. ‘Hello.’  
  
‘Hello to you to.’ Joan kisses her, then collapses back onto the mattress. ‘You were doing that blinking thing.’  
  
‘Blinking thing? I don’t do a blinking thing.’  
  
‘Yes, you do. Quite often, actually. It’s like watching the ‘loading’ screen on a computer. I don’t mind, it’s- well, it’s you, isn’t it? I just wanted to know if you were ok. Your neck?’  
  
‘It’s fine. Mostly fine. No worse, anyway.’ 

Sherlock is rather mortified to discover she’s been doing a blinking thing after sex. Why had nobody told her this before? Well, admittedly, there was only Veronica before Joan, and that was… a disaster. Perhaps it isn’t so surprising that she hasn’t been informed up till now.  
  
‘Your sex hair is going to be much, much more manageable now,’ Joan observes after a while. She rolls onto her side to better observe Sherlock, and Sherlock watches her right back.  
  
There is a place in her Mind Palace particularly for Joan. A room with large windows, clear sunlight and comfortable chairs. This room contains records of her voice, her favorite phrases, habits, smells, clothes. Her dislikes, her family, the unique quirks of her body. Sherlock decides this moment, now, must be committed to the permanent record: Joan’s warm eyes, her tousled hair, bare breasts. The scar spreading out across her shoulder. Her small half-smile as she watches Sherlock, totally at ease.  
  
Joan reaches over to her, begins tracing shapes onto her stomach. Sherlock sighs, closing her eyes, letting herself focus on the touch. Shapes, shapes… a circle? A circle divided into four. An imperfect circle, though, more like a… more like a heart. Not the simplified, foolish heart she sees on cards and stitched into teddy bears. The real thing. Fleshy and pulsating. Alive. Joan traces the four chambers over the skin of Sherlock’s exposed stomach.   
  
She can picture Joan’s heart, and her own. Beating in tandem, pumping separate blood through their separate bodies, both of them breathing the same air, sharing the same bed.  
  
Joan doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to, not now. Sherlock knows.

 


End file.
